Area Sales Manager

This role is for a leader who believes great results come from great people - and that teams do their best when they care about the outcome, each other, and how they show up.

The purpose of this position is to coach and develop a team to success, enabling Sales Representatives to achieve their goals, deliver strong business results, and grow professionally - while supporting profitable growth within the General Industrial division. This is a high-impact leadership opportunity for a builder: someone who enjoys developing talent, shaping culture, and achieving meaningful results through others.

As a force multiplier, the leader in this role inspires, elevates, and supports a team of General Industrial Sales Representatives while reinforcing accountability to clear, shared outcomes. By focusing on the activities that enable success - coaching, value-based selling, consistent sales execution, and driving progress and execution against clearly defined value plans - the role helps translate strong execution into tangible business results, including new business growth, sales growth, and margin performance.

This role offers meaningful visibility, broad scope, and the opportunity to positively influence both business performance and leadership outcomes within the General Industrial division. The culture fostered by this leader is rooted in mutual respect, collaboration, trust, and shared accountability, where people are expected to bring both strong performance and strong character. The culture fostered by this leader reflects humility, hunger, and people smarts, grounded in authenticity, constructive dialogue, teamwork, and a clear focus on follow-through and results.

Location Preference: Candidates located throughout the Southeast region. The Southeast region consists of the following states: Mayland, North Carolina, Virgina and West Virgina.

• Lead and develop a team of General Industrial Sales Representatives as the primary responsibility of the role, enabling achievement of sales, margin, and gallon growth goals through effective coaching, talent development, and disciplined execution.
• Support the achievement of General Industrial sales, margin, and gallon growth goals by leading, coaching, and enabling a team of Sales Representatives - balancing territory performance, expenses, and profitable execution in support of business objectives.
• Enable effective sales execution by guiding Sales Representatives in building healthy pipelines, practicing disciplined opportunity management, and developing high-quality value plans while ensuring consistent follow-through and progress against those plans to promote sustained growth and protection of the business.
• Attract, develop, and retain a high-performing Sales Representative team through thoughtful hiring, onboarding, coaching, and performance feedback - setting clear expectations around teamwork, respect, and accountability, and fostering an environment where individuals are supported to grow and succeed.
• Engage across multiple General Industrial segments, helping Sales Representatives navigate diverse customer needs, applications, and value drivers - bringing energy, curiosity, and enjoyment to the selling process while supporting consistent and disciplined execution.
• Create clarity and alignment around expectations and goals by maintaining visibility to pipeline health, reviewing progress collaboratively, supporting progress against value plans, and partnering with Sales Representatives to remove obstacles and support successful outcomes.
• Support a culture of value-based selling by sharing best practices, reinforcing execution discipline, and encouraging continuous improvement in selling capability.
• Promote strong forecast accuracy and a healthy operating rhythm by facilitating regular pipeline reviews, performance discussions, and business cadence activities that enable transparency, shared accountability, and informed decision-making.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Marketing, Operations, Supply, Technical Service, Regional Facility leadership, as well as Lab and Enterprise partners, to align resources, support effective customer execution across both transactional and enterprise opportunities, and enable the sales team's success.
• Engage with customers alongside Sales Representatives through joint calls and travel within the area of responsibility to support key opportunities, reinforce value-selling behaviors, and strengthen customer relationships.

Minimum Requirements:

• Must have a High School education or equivalent

• Must have strong working knowledge of value propositions and familiarity with structured sales processes or value selling methodologies.

• Must be able to demonstrate ability to build partnerships across functions and work effectively with a variety of stakeholders to drive commercial success.

• Demonstrated readiness for people leadership, including self awareness, receptiveness to feedback, and flexibility in leadership approach across diverse situations and individuals.

• Must have experience using CRM or sales tools to support pipeline management, forecasting, or performance visibility

Preferred Qualifications:

• Have previous sales experience in the paints and coatings industry.

• Have industrial Painting segment knowledge and/or experience, including manufacturing environments and customer buying processes.

• Have prior experience leading, coaching, or mentoring sales representatives, including informal leadership, team lead roles, or project leadership.

• Have experience managing sales execution through others, including goal setting, pipeline review, performance feedback, and accountability.

• Have experience managing change, adopting new sales tools or processes, or stepping into increased leadership scope.

• Have exposure to disciplined pipeline management and forecasting practices in a B2B sales environment.

• Have an ability to identify specific metal and plastic coatings users, including knowledge of liquid and powder coatings used in this marketplace and their applications.

• Have working knowledge of surface preparation and pretreatment methods used on metal and plastic substrates